


Stay With Me

by Anonymous



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Discussion of theoretical Dark!Charles, Emotional Baggage, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles is sick and fretful. Erik is the calm one for once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay With Me

            Charles hates being sick. Obviously he does, everyone does, but Charles hates it for different reasons. Of course he doesn’t like the constant headache or the pain in his throat, the coughing, the sneezing, or the phlegm, or chapped lips, but it’s the feeling of being alone that he can’t stand. He can still sense the others’ thoughts and emotions, but they’re duller than usual, as if they’d gone still long enough to gain a coat of dust. Being stuck in his room doesn’t make things any better. He thinks sullenly that it would be nice if someone would stop and check in on him, even for a moment. He feels awful, embarrassed by his own neediness, so desperately lonely that he wants to scream.

            He’s trying so hard not to ask for anything, not to be a burden, but it’s so difficult and he’s so tired and where _is_ everyone? It’s too hot in this room and too cold, and why is this happening and why can’t he make it go away? Why won’t anyone help him? He remembers being holed up in this same room as a child, shivering and sweating and wishing that someone, anyone was with him. He remembers the maid who brought him a tray with toast and tea. He remembers trying to come up with a reason for her to stay. He remembers thinking that he could make her stay, maybe even forever, and how that temptation filled him with dread. He remembers lying awake and restless, wondering if perhaps he could force his mother to stop drinking or his stepfather to love him.

            The door creaks open (At last! At last!) and oh, there’s Erik, but Erik’s carrying a tray, and no, that’s wrong! That’s horribly wrong! If Erik has a tray, if Erik is like the maid, if Charles makes him stay—and he can’t do that. Not to Erik. Not to anyone, but God, never Erik.

            “No,” he whimpers. “No, you can’t, I can’t, please!”

            “It’s just me, Charles.” Erik is setting down the tray and coming nearer, frowning, and of course it’s him, that’s the whole fucking problem!

            “Need to go, stay with me, don’t want to make you, no, no, no—”

            “Charles, what are you talking about?”

            “There was a maid, I was alone, and now you!”

            “I don’t understand.”

            _THIS,_ Charles thinks, and he shoves the memory at Erik as hard as he can. Erik winces and staggers back, but Charles isn’t sorry because he _has_ to know. He has to see what Charles might do to him.

            But Erik regains his balance and advances, climbs into the bed to hold on to Charles. _Oh God, I’m doing it already!_

            “You’re not doing anything,” Erik tells him, and his voice is so even and sure that Charles might even believe him. But…

            “How do you know?”

            “I know because I still think you’re being ridiculous and that you shouldn’t be so afraid of your powers.”

            “I could make you think that,” Charles says. “I could leave enough of you that you thought I was never in your mind at all.”

            Erik lets out a frustrated huff. “Yes, but you wouldn’t. And before you ask, I know that you wouldn’t because you don’t _want_ to do that to me.”

            “What if I did?”

            “But you don’t, Charles. The fact that you’re so afraid you might take me over is a testament to that.” Erik maneuvers Charles so that he’s propped up between Erik’s legs, his head resting on Erik’s chest.

            “I don’t know,” Charles sighs.

            “Just once, have the same faith in yourself that you have in everyone else. You actually deserve it.”

            And oh, there it is, the one thing he knows he would never think to make Erik say. And then it hits him that if he didn’t make Erik say it, then Erik said it on his own. Then Erik meant it.

            “Of course I meant it. You told me there was still good left in me. Let me do the same for you.”

            Charles has no words, just mingled awe and love and wonder, but he sends that to Erik and hopes it’s enough. And it must be, because when Erik sends it right back at him the dust is gone. Erik is a clear, bright beacon, and Charles is no longer alone.

            “Stay with me?”

            “You only had to ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd because of reasons. Written because apparently this is what happens when I get sick and have a lecture about Freud (including themes of childhood trauma and regression) on the same day. The lecture mentioned projection too, but I'll pretend that isn't relevant here.


End file.
